Days 5-7 - Montezuma

on friday morning we set out to find our way to Manuel Antonio for the day, but aftern talking to a travel agent in Jaco, we were convinced to go spend the day and one night in Montezuma. We ended up spending three days. we only had one change of clothes and limited cash. There is no ATM in Montezuma. we were recommended a hostel down by the waterfall we would explore "hotel lucy". it was within just a few feet of the ocean. you woke up in the morning and fell asleep at night to the sound of the ocean..the water crashing against the rocks. after checking in we headed back to the waterfalls. there was somewhat of a trail, but the fun part was when you had to make your own. the first waterfall we found was small and beautiful. the second was tall, powerful, and breathtaking. there was even another fall to the right of it that was less powerful. we were also told that had we kept climbing up we would have found three more falls. we swam in the pool of water beneath the fall, and jumped from the rocks beside the fall, and even went almost behind the falls and jumped off. That night we went out to the only bar that stayed open at night...chicos. We played pool with a nice TN boy that was also staying at our hostel. we watched some locals do some salsa dancing and then headed back to our hostel. we loved it there in montezuma that we decided to stay another night. the next day we got up and ate breakfast. we saw that a local had caught a stingray...we went down to see it and he was gutting it...a little disturbing but interesting. we relaxed most of the day and later took a walk down the beach towards a hotel/resort that you can only reach by the beach. it was so sad.... massive amounts of trash had been washed up onto the shore. we are not sure where it came from, but we had passed most of it just floating in the ocean on the hour long boat ride from Jaco to Montezuma. Further down the beach though we found pools of water among the rocks that were like hot tubs, and thousands of tiny hermit crabs. we ate dinner and relaxed the rest of the night. on our third day in montezuma we took a local bus that dropped us off in the middle of a small town called cabuya. there we got lost a little walking around, but finally found "rain song sanctuary" this was a privately owned animal sanctuary. there we got to see beautiful views of the country side, we were able to play with ant-eaters, baby deer, porcupines, kinkachoo's, monkey's, and so much more. it was amazing, and something we could have never done in the states. after we had finished we realized that the next bus would not be by for at least two hours. so we decided to start walking back the seven miles back to montezuma, and catch the bus as it came by later. on our walk back we found a small river that emptied into the ocean. you could rock hop, or just sit in the clear cool water. there we also began to hear howler monkey's and later were able to see about 15 fully grown and some baby howler monkey's watching us, just as much as we were watching them = ) we then resumed our hike and caught the bus back to montezuma. once back in town we had to find a new place to stay that would accept credit card. we met a wonderful couple that owned a house right in town, right by the ocean. she had come from australia and married a costarican man and together they had built this house. it was beautiful! it could have comfortably housed four people, there was a ladder that led to a small balconly upstairs that overlooked the ocean. we ate dinner at the "pizza connection" and loved it! we relaxed the rest of the evening and the next day caught our boat back to jaco. we were all sad to leave. when any of us return to costa rica we all agree that montezuma would be the place to go and stay. it is so beautiful, and has a sustainability focus and all organizations seem to work to support the local economy. we absolutely loved it!!!! we got back here to jaco and all showered and put on clean clothes = ) we took a trip into town and dropped off our laundry. for 18 dollars all of our laundry was washed, dried, and folded! we went to the market for groceries, made a delicious dinner, and are just sitting around enjoying costa rican coffee and costa rican life. we love and miss you all!!! will write again soon.